Jamestown: State sets course for birthday bash

JAMESTOWN, Va. -- Plymouth tends to hog the attention, with its buckle-shoed Pilgrims and the story of the first Thanksgiving.
But in 1607, 13 years before the Pilgrims landed in Massachusetts, three ships deposited a group of explorers on a swampy peninsula on Virginia's James River that became America's first permanent English settlement and the birthplace of the United States.
A new replica of one of those ships will embark May 22 on a tour of six East Coast ports to drum up interest ahead of the big 400th birthday bash for Jamestown a year from now.